Dig fails to unearth 100-year-old boat said to be buried in West Palm backyard

Tony Doris @TonyDorisPBP

Friday

Oct 12, 2018 at 12:01 AMOct 14, 2018 at 4:25 PM

An archaeological dig failed to unearth the 100-year-old schooner said to be buried in a North Flagler Drive backyard, clearing the way for West Palm Beach to start work on a retention pond to ease flooding in the sometimes soggy neighborhood.

But did the diggers dig deep enough?

A local who remembered the ship’s first being detected during a swimming pool excavation in the 1970s said the 1800’s schooner was buried in muck 8 to 10 feet down, so the city’s archaeologists, who only went 4 to 6 feet into the sandy fill on top of that muck, wouldn’t have found the vessel.

Regardless, the city project wouldn’t have to be more than one-and-a-half feet deep, so the pond could be built without disturbing whatever lies beneath, Assistant City Manager Scott Kelly said. He anticipated that work could begin as soon as contractors can be mobilized, in a little as two weeks.

"We’re not digging that deep," he said.

WEST PALM BEACH readers: Sign up here for our weekly West Palm newsletter

Along the Lake Worth Lagoon a mile-and-a-half north of downtown, the neighborhood long has been subject to flooding. As a result, the city bought the waterfront home site at 3336 N. Flagler in 2015 for $2.95 million, anticipating the project.

This old steam engine is said to have come from a schooner buried behind a home on North Flagler Drive. (Courtesy of Carl Flick)

The site is the lowest in the area and the city plans to demolish the house and use the property to channel neighborhood storm water into the retention pond, hopefully creating a new outfall into the lagoon.

When word got out an old schooner was believed in the way, the city stopped the clock on the project and brought in archaeologist Bob Carr, who works with Florida’s Division of Historic Resources, to check the site for historic relics.

Carr’s team found board fragments, bottles and boat nails, or spikes, but no signs of the ship that residents of the area recalled from the old swimming pool dig. Carr declined to speak in detail, as he had not yet issued his report to the city.

Residents of North Flagler Drive have complained for years about its flooding. (Clayton Norman)

Don Rich, 59, who grew up three houses away from the site, was a boy of 13 in 1972 when homeowner Derek Brock made the discovery in the backyard, site of a boatyard in the 1890s.

First, rum bottles came up. "Then the guy hit something large and metallic," Rich recalled recently. That turned out to be a two-cylinder steam engine with foot-wide pistons.

After the pool went in, workers covered the ship. The wooden ship was a coastal freighter, one that would carry lumber and other building materials from Stuart and other parts to the north, and haul produce on the return trip, Rich said.

"You could see the whole massive frame of this boat in the ground," said Greg Albritton, a friend of Rich’s who was with him that day in 1972. Albritton figured that kind of ship could have dated from the early 1800s.

Albritton, a surveyor by trade, came by and watched Carr’s dig. He expressed disappointment Friday the team didn’t turn up the ship despite the fact the location was known.

The city plans to demolish this house on North Flagler Driveto make way for a drainage trench to relieve flooding. (Tony Doris / The Palm Beach Post)

He’d like to see the archaeologists return with ground-penetrating sonar, or a high-end metal detector, but was told by Carr that would be expensive.

He doubted, in any event, that the retention area would retain much. The dig only went down so deep because the trench filled with sea water at 3 feet, Albritton said.

He predicted that the shallow that the city creates would fill with water during high tides, even without flooding.

For those interested in buried treasure, or at least a buried schooner, the proof it exists lies in plain view.

When Brock excavated his swimming pool, his spouse apparently was unable to dissuade him from hoisting out the massive steam engine and displaying it on the home’s front lawn. There the hulk remains, rusting in the weeds and steamy humidity.